My maternal Dutch grandfather was arrested by the Germans for listening to radio free Orange broadcasting from London. If only the Nazis had mastered the art of inhibiting communications like the Chinese are doing today, perhaps then my grandfather would have refrained from objecting to Nazi rule. Perhaps we'd all have.

Your grandfather also did not have access to a personal computer and the internet (not making light of his plight by the way). Chinese citizens have access to those as well as VPNs for viewing blocked websites such as Youtube. Perhaps it has less to do with brainwashing, and more to do with a fear of the devil one does not know?

I had a Dutch grandfather as well. But I think Radio Orange can be seen as qualitatively very different from a BBC shortwave broadcast in Asia from a national point of view.
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Radio Orange was a Dutch (exile) government broadcast back to the Netherlands. The intentions of Radio Orange for the Dtuch people was never in doubt.
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However, one can easily cast doubts on the intentions of some "free" radio broadcasts by entities from big powerful nations who have had a record of meddling in other countries' affairs, not necessarily for the good of the target listeners, but ultimately for the benefit of the broadcasters' homelands. A better comparison would be say, Radio Moscow targeting North American listeners -- never mind whether the signals were jammed or not.
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I'm not saying that this is necessarily the intention of broadcasters like the BBC or the VOA but I just want to point out the difference in perception among the target audience of Radio Orange versus VOA/BBC World or Asia (or China?) service. Personally I am surprised that the BBC has said anything scary enough to Beijing for it to be jammed.

this is silly, the Chinese hacking network is completely different from America. China doesn't have just a centralized cyber command on the PLA payroll. It mostly outsources by paying freelance hackers for information, hence the non-chalantness of some of the breaches with the hacker going to browse facebook on a target's computer after establishing remote. Yes China does have a state policy of stealing info, but it doesn't get its hands dirty and can always point at plausible deniability and just say it was the work of some mischievous citizens and turn a blind eye.

it appears that many chinese listen to bbc shortwave engish program to learn english. the bbc knew that and exploited that to coach along, with brainwashing propaganda imbedded in the broadcast material.
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it's like administrating some daily shots of dope laced vitamin solution (of english learning) that bbc is good at spreading.

if anyone is free to install anti-virus software in his/her pc, why can't any nation install anti-virus jamming in its own country?
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and it's not that bbc is squeaky clean in the virus spreading or scandal infesting department either. in fact notorious.
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and by the way, Mr. obama mentioned 'China' twice in his state of the union speech and he did not mention such accusations against china. so don't speculate or put words in his mouth.

As usual, Buttercup, you ask an unusually pointed question to which I hopelessy struggle in ignorance to respond to in an informed manner. Still, you gotta wonder, what with policy-positions like like this -
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"Shas opposes any form of public expression of homosexuality, including Gay Pride parades, especially in Jerusalem. Shas MK Nissim Ze'ev accused the homosexual community of "carrying out the self-destruction of Israeli society and the Jewish people", calling homosexuals "a plague as toxic as bird flu."
.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shas#Ideology

Again, bravo to TE which has once again delivered a well balanced article. The Chinese authorities tend to keep quiet when these sorts of allegations are made against them. Probably because they cannot be bothered to respond to what perhaps they consider idiotic indictments, since everyone knows that everyone else is involved in this sort of snooping. The M15 and the CIA are no kindergartens. We should all quit this silly business of pretending that this sort of thing is not widespread. It really would be remiss of the government of any country to be be naive and negligent enough to think that the world is as the guy at your local pub thinks it is, and not take into account the fact that there are those out there prepared to do them serious harm if given any opportunity. I would have thought for America 9/11 would have been a wake up call. Enough of this pseudo-naivety.
I really do find it rather curious that there are still people who listen to shortwave radio. That really, for me, was the interesting part of this article.

Numbers stations are still a big thing. Everyone uses them to some extent, even Cuba.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gfiv_v3NzNwhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odbQD7TYe9E
I bought a cheap shortwave after that film "The Boat that Rocked". Though I haven't done this in a long time, there are some amazing pirate radio stations on shortwave. I mean this without hyperbole, they play some incredible music that one would most certainly not hear on normal, FM radio. A lot of independent stuff, world rock (this Dutch station introduced me to Khmer Rock, which is pretty nice), hip-hop, electronica, classic blues, you can hear anything and everything. All, of course, ad-free.

I last listened to SW radio back in the 1970's. I still have a feeling of nostalgia for those good old days, but I don't think I really want to go back to listening to all that crackling and fading. My nerves have become too sensitive to endure such staccato. But, by the way, if you don't mind how does the fare on SW compare to what is now readily available on the internet ?

The internet has a multitude of interesting radio stations, and what is on shortwave cannot compare. Some major forums and lots of colleges provide their own radio stations, which have more variety and better audio quality than shortwave. Also VoA, NPR, and BBC have their own internet radio stations, which means pretty solid news coverage anywhere in the world (where there is a decent internet connection).

I guess part of the romanticism associated with shortwave is that you can listen anywhere in the world to any station in the world. You can be in the Gobi or Mojave and listen to BBC World or a station from Iran. Part of the joy among shortwave enthusiasts is finding out these stations from far-off locales. And it's a satisfying feeling when you tinker around and get a French radio station in Africa playing funk music.

tl;dr: Both shortwave and internet radio have their respective charms.

So the Chinese don't want propaganda beamed into their country; what of it? Would the West like the Chinese to offer an English language news service, that denounces its governments as liars and oppressors, beamed into their countries? Notice how hard it is to get RT TV in the US.

I watched CCTV 9 in China once. Two weeks later I arose from my comatose state in the hospital. My family had been by my side the whole time. I'm just lucky I hit something soft on the way down as my brain began voluntarily starving itself of oxygen.

If CCTV-9 (the English language Chinese TV) is not talking about Tibet, Taiwan, or the Chinese Communist Party they are generally less politically biased and more professional than the BBC. The same could be said about Al Jazeera in the main. As someone who grew up listening to the BBC on shortwave as the best news source in the world that is a very sad thing to me.

RT is better than any of America's local news services. In any event, I have only seen CCTV on 30 minute blocks leased from public television stations. Also note that non-Americans cannot own media holdings in the US; most outside news comes via the Internet or small blocks leased from PBS stations. Thing are nowhere near as open in America as people have been lead to believe.

BBC offerings are still better than CCTV. They cover far more topics and regions. If you watch TV to get your news rather than just viewing it as entertainment than maybe CCTV is better. But for me I read most of my news.

In my region of Western Europe China's English language media is easily available which I often dip into to see the Chinese side of the story - CCTV, Global Times, China Daily etc. They often do take a very hard line to some criticisms of China.
That's a nice luxury we have in the West. I can read anyone's newspapers, watch anyone's news channels, hear everyone's opinions - whether independent newspapers or reading government rags. The uncensored internet and satellite TV are wonderful inventions. Being multilingual also allows me to read/watch news from around the world. I can make up my own mind, rather than being spoon fed highly censored news from a single government-controlled source. I thoroughly encourage everyone who has this wonderful freedom to take full advantage of it.

Actually they do cover their pollution and their industrial accidents. The corruption and The Great Firewall not so much. They cover the rest of the world without any bias I've noticed. Less left wing bias in fact about events occurring outside their nation than I see the BBC evince.

CCTV is available 24/7 on the internet. The only really good thing on RT is the Kaiser report - the funniest, most interesting business show in the world. What a bomb thrower! In general the anti-American bias on RT does get old after a while.

Let's make a deal, 'K? We'll keep our pervos home in the West and you keep your thieves home in the smog. Sound good to you?
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-05/michigan-couple-stole-gm-secret...]

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Next, they will have to sell their daughters to the Chinese in order to survive, ;-D, ;-D, ;-D:

I wonder if this saturated broadcast of information about Chinese army hackers, Chinese jamming and so on, is not inspired by intelligence services. Blaming Chinese might be a cover e.g. for the ongoing preparations of major cyberwar against Iran. Launch of next generation nuke-level Stuxnets has to be preceded by special operations to confuse public who was the originator. This time, after the cyberattack becomes public the first thought coming to mind will be: "Damned Chinese again".

Except that the Chinese do not view Iran as a security threat, and have indeed been proven to be supplying Iran with the materials they need to build centrifuges in the first place, and regularly cooperate with Iranians on getting around international sanctions to buy their oil.

Pretty silly to attack a friend over a program you don't care about amid ongoing cooperation - nobody would believe it was the Chinese.